Thief
by DanSRose
Summary: Five years after the events of The Ring, things are calm. Then, Samara is let loose into the world again, curse and all. The curse will be broken. Story completed. Please R
1. Cleaning House

Note: This takes place about 5 years after _The_Ring_. _The_Ring_ is the creation of Gore Verbanski.

~~~7~~~

Aidan Keller waited five minutes before waking his mother. Coffee was already on done and scrambled eggs and French toast were already served. 

"Rachel, you are going to be running late. Eat, shower, and get dressed. It's raining again and the buses are not running." Aidan did not yell, scream, talk in a hurried tone; he did not rush through sentences. He spoke in a plain monotone, as if he knew that his mother would be running late, drink and eat her breakfast at the same time, driving as fast as she could in the horrible Seattle traffic, getting him to his school just as the late bell sounded. The fact of the matter was that he probably did. 

Only one thing was out of order that morning and Aidan did not bother to fix it; it had never fit quite right on the wall. A picture was askew, the picture of Aidan's birth father, Noah, who was killed at the end of that awful week.

After they made a copy of the tape together, Rachel Keller broke down. Total nervous breakdown. Her editor did not blame her, but did everything to help. He even arranged a small retreat for her to go to. First day there, she removed all mirrors and lined the dresser and small coffee table with coasters. She refused to let the girl back in. She ordered the administrator to take away the television and phone and, if there was an emergency and she needed to be contacted, to have someone come to her in person. Rachel claimed that she did not want any outside distractions. The truth was more horrifying than the reality of it. Rachel was thoroughly terrified, but she had her reflection back. She stayed there, at the retreat, for ten days, which made it exactly two weeks after she freed Samara; she wanted be sure that the girl was gone.

Aidan's reflection returned after his seventh day. It was on that day Noah was laid to rest. No one knew what to do with him; Noah's estranged father did not want to give him a proper Jewish burial, like his mother would want- no rabbi would sanctify it. A Catholic one was out of the question because of that very reason and no one would consider an open casket. On Rachel's third day away, the second day of what to do about the body, the head editor of the Seattle Post-Inquirer walked in with a five-year old boy, claiming to be the some of Noah and Rachel Keller. He proceeded to pick up a phone and call a lawyer, the very lawyer that Noah had used several weeks before when he half completed a will. It was Noah's wish to be cremated and have his ashes spread over the Grand Canyon. It was there on assignment where he met Rachel, a young reporter doing a story on families on vacation who needed a good photographer. Aidan led the task in dividing up Noah's possessions and, in the VCR, he found a copy of the tape. He hid it.

After he was back in the apartment with his babysitter, he used Rachel's credit card and ordered the most secure safe he could find. Aidan continued and called a construction company to install the safe into the side of the wall over the fake fireplace. When Rachel got back, she noticed the picture of Noah and how it leaned slightly to the left; assuming that Aidan hung it himself, she ignored it. It took Aidan two days of searching the apartment to find the other two copies. In their place, he put two old Disney movies and moved the tapes into the safe. One day later, Rachel fell into a fit panic; she remembered that Noah had a copy of the video. "I destroyed it, Rachel. Do not worry about it. I took care of it," her son said. 

They both let it go. Rachel knew he was lying; it was his only flaw, Aidan was a horrible liar. Either way, they both knew destroying the tape would only bring her back. She never sleeps and wants to stay alive as much as possible; destroying the tape would only bring her back. 

Rachel ignored the charges on her Visa. There was only one logical connection, and she didn't want to make it. Not just yet. 

~~~7~~~

Aidan is beyond genius. After two years in his old school and bumped up to the next grade at the beginning of each year, he was placed in the sixth grade, then moved to the best gifted school in the city. Here, there is no limit to what he can do and grow. Of course, there are others similar to him, but few like him. He has taken up photography and filmmaking with some of Noah's equipment that he held onto, creating some of the strangest and most moving short features that anyone at the school had ever seen. The twelfth graders and their leading film teacher brought him into their fold. _Their_Fold_ was the senior class film and entered into Seattle film festival; Aidan's camera work, editing, and additions to the storyline made them win the grand prize. Apparently, he also has his mother's gift of the written word. Coppola and Melville in the body of a eleven-year old.

Coming home late, as usual, he made himself a snack. Rachel was coming in even later, so dinner had to be ready for her. He would wait; he always waits. The wind blew the script he was working all over the floor. Someone else was here. 

Rachel's room was almost empty. Her jewelry box was cleared out. Some of his editing equipment was gone. 

It was while he was dialing 911 when he saw the worst of it. The picture of Noah was straight.


	2. Contagion

Congrats to Daveigh Chase for winning the MTV Movie Award for Best Villain for Samara Morgan

"Yes, officer. We only had a few items in the safe. They are great concern to us."

The police officer was not impressed. "You said that you kept only several video tapes-"

"Yes. Three unmarked tapes and some jewelry." Rachel Keller was panicking. Samara could not get out. Not again.

"Ma'am, may I be frank with you? Was there anything personal on those tapes?" The officer was being polite, but that did not hide the smirk on his face. Pervert.

"No. They were copies of my son's father's final film project. He wanted Aidan  to have them specifically. I don't know is on them, but that's what I know." I hate this. I know the only real way we are going to get them back is if someone watches them. Hopefully, the department will do their job, but I'm not betting on it. Samara, that virus of a little girl, is going to spread. "I really think that they were a final message for my son. A final goodbye. Me and him were working on a story and there was a threat against our lives. I think that the tapes were a precaution if something happened." Time to bring out emotions. It's amazing how many times this has worked. "Something happened. I want him to know the man his father was." I hate doing this, especially like this.

And it works, of course. "I'm terribly sorry, ma'am. We will be on top of this. Take my card if you find anything else missing. And ma'am, we'll find your husband's tapes."

"Thank you, officer." It's better not to correct people in this situation.

~~~7~~~

"Aidan." My son had a connection with her. Even if he didn't, he would still know something. "Is she back? Is she doing this?" No answer. "Aidan."

"I'm thinking, Rachel." He went back to his place. "This seems random. By chance. This wasn't supposed to happen. It was not part of the plan."

"I guessed that. Should I have Harvey look into it? Have him put some pressure on his friends in the force?"  
He stared at me with eyes. He scares me when he does that. It's like he is looking through me. "Yes, Rachel. Right now. You have to make sure she doesn't get out. She can't get out."

"Aidan. I can't think of any way to find her if the police don't the tapes. Unless… unless we wait a week."  
"Rachel, you know that can't be an option. We kept her in all these years by controlling her. No one else knows what she is or how to stop her." He stared at the window. "They did not come through the window. We are thirty-five stories up. Someone wanted to get in here."

~~~7~~~

"Aidan, is there anyone you know who wanted to get back at you or held a grudge against you?" The police officer was condescending, but he was asking the right questions.

"Only a few people. One is dead and shouldn't be coming back." My greatest worry. "There is someone from school, a junior in what would be considered high school. He thinks he and I have a rivalry in our film classes. His uncle is a director and he believes that he has the same gifts."  
"And what do you think of his gifts?"  
"Nothing to brag about. He should learn the fundamentals first."

"Do you think he would act against you?"

That is in the right direction. "Not him, but his older brother. He was expelled three years ago for plagiarism, in his English class and for using copyrighted film material, cheating, and fighting. I replaced him and almost all of his footage in the film contest. Essentially, we won because of me, instead of him. Someone once told me that he and his cousin went to a juvenile detention facility last year for a small felony. I believe they were released last month."

"Aidan, why would he strike against you now, if they were out for a month?" 

"In two weeks, we enter this year's film contest and I heard it was on his eighteenth birthday." There was something else. He should know about Samara, but he wouldn't believe. How could he? To believe is to see it. Harvey only believes because he reviewed the evidence. He was there when they took away Noah's body, when the coroner compared it Katie's and the innkeeper's autopsy reports, when he himself brought a private specialist to compare it the remains of Samara. All the results turned in the same findings. 

Basically, all of the death autopsy reports said the same thing: extreme exposure possibly leading to the total heart failure, massive amounts of fungal and simple plants in the lungs and other orifices and growing on the skin, face and bone structure contorted into extremes, almost all color drained and pigmentation removed from body. It appeared that all of the bodies were dropped down a well and were recovered after seven days.

This was why Harvey threw his full support behind Rachel; there was no excuse, no reason for her not to break down. 

Whatever happened was horrible beyond words. She needed all of the help she could get; she was traumatized from what she saw.

~~~7~~~

In the five years that passed, Aidan changed. Something woke up inside of him. First, it was just sensing things in other people, which progressed into knowing exactly what they were thinking, which progressed into knowing what they were not thinking, what was in their subconscious and lived in their memories. He eventually learned to control it, but barely. Many of his films were made by him, not by editing machines or computer digital effects, but by something else entirely.

"So, Aidan. Are you finished with your entry yet?" Keiko was not officially his girlfriend; she was fifteen, he was barely eleven and had plenty of other things on his mind, namely the thoughts of everyone else. "Are you going to spruce it up a bit?" she said with a wink.

"My equipment was stolen last night. Someone broke into our apartment." She found out about what Aidan could do all by herself. She always leaned to the stars when it came to meeting people, checking for possible placement of alien impants, doing tests for telepathy, remote viewing, or other psychic phenomena, and questioning others for their insight and experiences into the paranormal. In the credits of their films, she was always listed as Keiko "Spooky" Suzuki. "What!? Are you okay? Do they know who did it yet?"

"No, but I think it was Brian and Nathan. But they would not know how to pick a lock. Their cousin maybe, the one who served time with Brian."

"Brian, that bastard! I'll claw his eyes out." When they met, his youth, his wisdom, his creativity, all intrigued her, so, therefore, he must be paranormal. He passed every test she gave to him, results and readings off the charts. She liked him for that and that he could pick up her obscure references, almost like he was picking them straight out of her mind. She didn't mind it; she even had him do some tests that she made special for him. 

"Don't. I will take care of him. Don't do anything. I will see you later in class." He shifted his book bag to the other shoulder. Several feet away, the small-stocked turned. "There is one thing you can do, Keiko." She liked him a lot and he liked her as well. He trusted her, confided in her.

"Anything, Aidan. Just point and click me in the direction and I will execute." As their relationship developed, they grew closer; even to the where he showed her what he could do to film. It works best with raw negatives, but eventually he learned to change film and create video with only his mind. Since it destroys the tracking, he only did it sparingly, as an enhancement for special effects. 

"You have your camera with you. Follow Nathan around for the rest of today and take some pictures of him." Keiko loved it when he did this; when he jumped conclusions or knew something that he was not supposed to know. "Just during the school day. Don't play spy for the day."

"Don't you worry about me. I'll do this, only if you me tell me what you know. Not now, of course, but later. Deal?"

She called it 'nensha', thought-drawing. "I will tell you everything. Just take the pictures and be careful."


	3. Looking and Seeing

"Okay, that was a complete waste of my yesterday. I could have filming something or testing the sewers or something."

"Hello Keiko. Do you have the film?" She humors me, makes me smile. That was enough. I don't know how she does this, makes have an emotion other than soberness and to help me give off something other than a grave calm air. The only other person I knew who could make me smile was Katie.

"Yes I do. I even got them developed."  
"Did you look at them?" No, she didn't. 

"No, I didn't. I was waiting for you. So, let's get on with it." Flipping each image one after the other, we saw a great deal of nothing. "He's a boring guy. Except for that 'specialty' store he went into. Perv." 

"I'm sorry, Keiko. I thought there was something to worry about."  
"Aidan. What's this?" Brian's face. We see it as if it were through water. "Aidan. Tell me."

"Rachel. I have to call Rachel." 

"Aidan! Look at the rest of them. My god." Nathan met his brother, at least one day claimed, possibly two. They went into an upscale apartment building. According to the time index on the prints, almost an hour later Nathan, Brian, and their cousin Vinny, as he was called, left the building. All their faces were drowned. "Aidan. What is this?"

"Keiko. I want you to listen to me: this is going to very dangerous. I want you to please leave this alone." 

"Aidan, no. I'm not. This is so intense." She sees it in me. "You know what this is, don't you? Aidan, tell me."

~~~7~~~

"Aidan, you're lying. That can't be real. It's too-" She's crying. I do not like it when this happens. Katie cried when she told me about the tape. I saw it in her, the curse in her. Aunt Ruth cried at Katie's funeral. Rachel cried after everything stopped, so abruptly and horribly.

"Keiko, it's real. She's real. Their faces are real and in seven days, they will all be dead. We need those tapes."

"She can do everything you can." I have to calm her down. Then I have to get to Rachel. "Aidan, she is just like you."

"She is evil, Keiko. I don't think I am." 

"Aidan, she only became evil once the tape was made. She only wants revenge for what she was denied. She was only a scared little girl who couldn't control what she was. She only wants to be a little girl with her mother."

"Little girls don't kill."

"It's not the point. She was hated by one parent and loved too much by the other and she had these powers that they did not understand; they only terrified them. Oh god, they locked her away because she couldn't control them, and, Aidan, you can do everything she can."

"They're coming."  
"Who? You can sense them coming?" The panic was subsiding; distraction tends to do that.

"No, I can see him coming of the bus. Hello Nathan."

"Aidan, hi." He was scared. He senses it. "How is your piece coming along?"

"It's fine. I've been working on it in school the last few days; the equipment there is better and it is easier using the digital technology. I have to finish up the last two minutes and reedit a sequence. How is yours'?" 

That was not the answer he wanted. "What? I mean, it's almost done too. I have to go."

Less than five feet away, he called someone on his cell phone. "That wasn't his project. I know, but- Look, Brian, even if he knows, it's dumbest prank any one could play on us."

"Keiko, we have to call Rachel."

"But he just admitted it."

"There are laws involved and we have to follow them. They have five days left, Brian and Vinny. Nathan has six. We can stop he."

~~~7~~~

"Rachel, here the reports you wanted. Exactly why are you looking into the Morgans now? There's nothing left to found out."

"Harvey, I'm cooking. I'll find you when I find something."

"Rachel, that's not working this time. Why are you looking into them?"

One finger up means hold that thought. Circle that; that's the key. "If I lose my train of thought, you're dead. I'm trying to see under what conditions Samara was conceived and what extremes they went to. I think that may go to explain why Samara can do the things she does. Now go away." He should wear better shoes. "I can hear you standing there. What are you thinking?"

The deep sigh comes before the storm. "I'm thinking of Aidan. He can do what she could. To much lesser extent, from you told me. I'm going on you here."

"No Harvey."

"I don't want you to think about this, but it's there. Aidan has some ability-"

 "Harvey, no. He can do the exact same things as she can. 'Can' as in present tense because she is still here. As in alive. Finding the tapes are nothing compared to stopping her for good. And that's what I want to do."

I hate the moments of hard silence. That's when things happen and when the shadows that exist in the corner your eye come out and pounce. So when Harvey's latest secretary came into the room, I let out a small scream. That's been happening a lot in the last five years, but it was fading away. 

"Rachel, your son is on line 7, and your wife is on line three, something about tickets tonight."

"Thanks, Meg. Tell her I'm in an important meeting and that I'll call her as soon as I get out, and that's a promise."

"Gotcha."

"Just screw her already. Your wife has someone on the side. Aidan?"

"Rachel, the boys I told you about have the tapes."  
"Are you sure?" He is sure. He would not call me here if he was not sure.

"Yes I am, Rachel. I sent Keiko to follow them for all of yesterday with a camera. Brian Finn and his cousin Vincent were the ones who broke in. Nathan was in on it as well, but he did not watch the video until yesterday afternoon. The other two saw before then. They are all infected."

I cannot speak. She is free.

"Rachel? Rachel? Are you there?"


	4. Confliciton

"Rachel? Say something."

"I'm here, Aidan. I'm here. Two days. You said?"

"Yes, Rachel. Two days. We have enough time. I know I can get it back from Nathan. Let Harvey and his friends work on his brother and his cousin. I have another idea."

~~~7~~~

"Hi Ms. Keller. I brought you some coffee."

"Thank you, Keiko. And again, call me Rachel." She's a cutie.

"Okay, Rachel." Now she's blushing. "Um, Ms- Rachel, you look confused. What's wrong?"

"Aidan told me what you said, about Samara being more tragic than evil. That's what's wrong. I know that is what she was, but I don't know if that is what she is now." 

Her head fell on my shoulder. It's nice to have another girl around again. The last girl we had around was Aidan's babysitter, Claude, after Katie died. He realized that she must have watched the tape, since that was where he found the video, and we saved with only several hours' left. 

She cares about him, me, everything. It feels good to have this again. "If she gets out, we know how to stop her. It shouldn't be too much of a problem. It's just a case of damage control now, right?" I can't go through this again. "Rachel?"

"Keiko, does Aidan ever tell that he has nightmares? I know he does; I hear him at night. I know his are worse, much worse, than mine. I know that he has changed because of her, Samara. She, in a way, infects us, everyone who watches the video. I see the well, from the outside and the inside looking up, feel the brick against the back of my head, I hear the horses at night, I can smell Anna Morgan's perfume, and I know how my blood tastes when I bite through my tongue during electroshock therapy. Aidan's walls shake some nights and I know he learned how make the images appear on screen from her and her memories."

"Rachel, there is nothing we can do for now." Her hand makes me warm; it's just the presence of someone, but it helps more than you can know.

"We have three days left."

"I know. We have to wait for Aidan to come back. He will have a tape, I know that."

I still get scared when the phone rings; this phobia has been getting worse. Now is no exception. "Rachel, it's Harvey. Stop hyperventilating. I have good news. The third kid, the cousin, he skipped out on his last meeting with his delinquency officer, which was around the same time as the break-in. That's enough cause for him to brought in and a search. The kid's sheet reads like the script for the last season of 'Law & Order'."

"That's good. It's good." I nearly scream as a hand squeezes my own. This girl is too good.

~~~7~~~

'Busy. It's probably Harvey on the phone with her,' Aidan thought. Nathan's room was as ordinary as every other spoiled rich kid's room as he had been in. Even though his school was made for gifted children, money has its way of weighting the scale. Nathan was not in the position of being in need of the influence of money, it had helped with getting funding for certain programs, like the art and video diversity program.

"So, Aidan, what do you need my help with?"

"Can you show me the technique that you used for your midterm project?" Aidan Keller was a genius, but when it came to film and video, he was the undisputed champion. This was an act, albeit a well-planned one, but an act still.

"Sure, I'll get my equipment," and then Aidan saw it. Lying there, as clear as day. A photo of him and his brother, faces blackened out in an insane spiral. 

"Nathan, is everything alright?" In the years, Aidan had only learned how vocalize some of his emotions; while most people would not see it, those around him long enough did. "Your face is gone. Why?"

Nathan had not noticed it, what he had done. While doing something else, anything else, it did not matter, he had destroyed the image of the viewers, the infected. On his desk and desktop, photos and images of him receiving awards, being the star, being the hero in one instance, were all blackened out, scarred, defamed. An uncapped black marker lay right next to it all.

"Everything is fine. It's nothing. Hold on. I'll get my editing board." Terrified by the unknown, he rushed out of the room pretending everything was fine, failing miserably.

Aidan stood up and looked around the room. The tape was not there, but evidence of Samara was there. A notebook of pictures of the chair and camera at Eola, drowning horses, the burning tree, pages of the word "mirror", the well, the ring, spirals, and insane loops. He was marked and had three days left to live.

Aidan summoned up what he was, the spark inside him. 'Summoning' is not the right word, but it does it the best. 'Gathering' works well too. His eyes shut and in a tunnel, he saw everything, stretched out in front of him. He saw the tape, in a blank box, in a blue shoebox under the computer desk, in Nathan's room, in the apartment where Nathan was on the phone with his brother. This process was how the CIA taught the participants in their remote viewing projects in the 60's and 70's exactly how to use their powers. Rumor had it that in the desert of Nevada, an offshoot of that branch continued on and today's web games were the continuation of the project. Keiko taught him how to do this.

Staggering back, Aidan's eyes opened, seeing the box, went to open it. As he began to clip off the tape that bound it shut, Nathan walked in, wild eyed and red faced. "What the hell do you think you are doing? My- my work is in there. Let go of it."

"Of course, Nathan. You open it." Handing him the box, Aidan looked Nathan straight in the eye. "There will be a foot long centipede in there. It will crawl past you and circle around your chair. Have you had any unexplained nose bleeds lately? I need that tape back. All of them. Open it."

Nathan shook. "Why are you doing this? We didn't mean anything. I just wanted to know how far you were. It was all Brian. He was jealous, he wanted to get back at you, he was obsessing about you. He talked Vinny into breaking in, he knows how to do it all. I want it all out of my head." On the floor shaking, he truly looked pathetic. The reality was that he was terrified. Nathan was smart enough to realize the truth: before you die, you see the ring.

"She's stronger than she was. I shouldn't be too surprised, neither should you. There was a reason why those tapes were locked away." 

It would sad, if it weren't so terrifying. "Make her stop. You know how to. You must know; you're still here." Sigh left his lips just before he lost his lunch. "I'm going to die, aren't I?"

"No." Aidan took the box, kneeled down on the floor, and opened the box on its side. The centipede crawled out and away, circling the chair to make its new home underneath a bookcase. He picked up the tape and held it to the light, checking for scratches. "There is a tracking problem, right? Make a copy of it. Now. I'll leave the room. I don't want to see it again."


	5. Detective

"It's done. Why did I do that? I can still feel her in me." Nathan was still upset. It, the video, tends to do that.

"She'll always be in you. There is nothing you can do that can change that. Now she just won't kill you." One down, two to go. I have to call Rachel and see what they are doing about the other tapes. "Nathan, I have to go. I have to call Rachel and see what they are doing about your brother and your cousin. They are infected as well."  
"How do you know about this? About being 'infected' by that girl? Did you start this?!" He was hyperventilating again.

"Nathan, I can tell you that I didn't start this. A little girl started this, even though she is supposed to be dead. Dead for almost twenty years now. I can tell you that this will be over as soon as you get in contact with your brother and tell him to make a copy of that tape, so he can give them to you so you can give them both to me. There is no I can think of stop her, not when the tapes are out."

"What is she?"

"That's the question on everyone's mind, but unfortunately we do not have that option right now."

He is getting annoying with these questions. "I was going to die?"  
"Yes. Seven days after you watched. You watch the tape, wait seven days, and she will come claim and you will die. Rachel and her boss her taking care of your cousin right now. You have to find your brother."

~~~7~~~

The squad car was already outside the building. "Nice car, Harvey. If it went any slower, it would make more sense if I walked." When Rachel Keller slammed the door, screws fell on blacktop and a window fell open. "Damn it. You're the editor of a major metropolitan newspaper. Buy a car that goddamn works."

"Hey, Rachel." Mark was a contact on the force that had a sister on the editorial staff. They used him for information within the force as need be. He usually asked for tickets to game if you were a male reporter, dinner and a movie if you were of the female variety. "You sure this is the kid who broke into your apartment?"

"Yes, Mark. And I want Italian and a comedy. Aidan talked it out of his cousin. We just want our stuff back, we won't even press charges."

"You tell that to him, not me. I don't care really either way. I just have to get these kids out of this building. Let's go."

The building smelled of beer, puke, and strangely enough freshly baked cookies. Down the hall, the sounds of Powerman 5000 blared, with only the sounds of kids laughing and having a good time competing with it.

"Hey, kids," Marked yelled, banging his flashlight on trashcans. "You can go home, but you can't stay here. Let's go. And a Vinny Finn. Come here please. We need info from you."

"I'll pay you if you tell me what I need." Rachel is the gutsiest reporter you will ever meet. She is no stranger to ghetto, slums, and gang violence of Seattle. She came as close joining one, but knew better. Very few members live past the age of nineteen. She was ancient by their standards, twenty-two then, thirty-five now. She knew how to get their attention and what to do to get what she wants.

"What do you want?" A lanky kid in a leather vest and stocking cap who looked like he had a grudge against humanity as a whole stepped out of the exiting crowd. It also looked like he hadn't slept in days.

"First, I want to take your picture." She clicked on her digital camera and snapped a quick shot. His face was lost and drowned. "Good. You watched it, didn't you? The nightmare tape."

"Yeah, I watched it with my cousin. I took the jewelry and he gave me one of the copies. He said do what I want with, but who would want to watch crap like that? It's weird."

"Yeah, yeah. Did you show it to anyone?" 

"Does it look like we have a VCR here? No, no one else watched it. It's in a place where I'll tell you once you pay." An annoying spoiled brat who could be a promising member of society if he would stop picking fights that and finding trouble that wasn't to begin with.

"Twenty bucks."

"Fifty."

"Thirty." 

"It's in that trunk. The most of the rest of the stuff we took is there too, unless one of the girls took them."

"Here you go, kid. Ten now and the rest after you do something for me."

~~~7~~~

"Aidan, the punk cousin is copying it right now. How did you do with Nathan?"

"She was affecting him more than I guessed. She is getting stronger. What is the condition of the cousin?"

"Other than some nightmares and a general bad sense of everything he seems unaffected, but he may just be faking it." Rachel just wanted to sit and scream and for this to be all over. Everything was happening again, but no one had died yet. She would not let it happen. "Where is Keiko?"

"With Nathan, helping him breathe. She wanted to affect him for some reason. I don't know why. It may be because of his films." Aidan wanted it all to be over as well. He wanted this to be over forever. He wanted Samara to go away for good.

"Are you going to Brian?" Her stress leaked through the phone.

"Yes, he is at a film-coffee house. They drink espressos, watch movies, and explain why they are horrible films. No one who goes there has an ounce of creativity."

Rachel Keller laughed. Her son could do that to her, his attempt at ego. That was her fault, her influence on her son. Unfortunately, her son became human in the last five years, complete with a sense of dry humor, an ego for the things important to human, and her will to do whatever it takes. "Call me when you have it under control."

"Of course." 


	6. Almost Away

It was a hookah sitting behind the counter. Aidan checked twice to make sure that he saw it right. It wasn't that he didn't know what one was; he wasn't stupid. He just was surprised that people were actively using it at three in the afternoon.

'I hadn't been to the academy in four days. No one would think of it,' he thought, the smell distracting him. They are raised to the pedestal of genius and everything they do is considered such. Since so many of the students actually do take days off to create only to come back in with works of art, it has become an acceptable excuse provided that they actually come in with something. He has never needed to; everything has always just come to Aidan.

'But not now. Getting the tape back will be easy. I need to stop this and nothing I can think of is a possible answer. Even if I find a way to destroy all of the copies, more can easily be produced. The cabin and the well are still there. Even though the owner of Shelter Mountain Inn is very dead, the Ookish family has repaired Cabin 12 and gotten a new staff to update the facilitates. Cabin 12 will still be open to the public, but they have removed all VCR equipment from all of the cabins and replaced them with an inhouse movie system. I don't think that will stop her and I don't know how to make her stop.' He thinks this, heart racing, looking around the beanbag filled room, with a film of smoke covering the ceiling, scented of apple, honey, and illegal products.

Aidan turned towards the counter, towards the smoking man. It took four rings before the man realized it was for him. "Hey little dude. How can I help you?"

"Where is Brian? Brian Finn. I have important info about a video project he saw." 

The man behind the counter smiled when he heard the last part. "That tape! Ooh, man. That thing was a headtrip. I could hear what the director was telling us about pain and the oppression of authority. I loved the parts with horses and their death; clearly a focus on a proletariat. It could become a classic, right next to the '5&1/2 Minute Hallway' piece that came out a few years ago, a piece that speaks about the emptiness in life."

The man did not know what he was talking about. Samara's tape was real, a collection of nightmare images that were strung together by a tortured soul. The stories and rumors about it have spread to a legendary status. The other project that the man behind the counter was a documentary of a man's house. It had been proven to be real in 2000.

"You saw the tape?"

"Well, no. He described it to me and showed me some screen shots. He me told it was giving me bad nightmares and stuff. He's in the video room and in a very bad mood. Be careful." The man behind the counter went back to his hookah.

The video room was small, but equipped with two VCRs, DVD player, and a set of cameras to film people watching movies. Everything had an inner meaning and nothing existed at face value. A cigar was never just a cigar; a cigar was an object identifying destructive male dominance over the planet. These people knew nothing of film or real life.

All the monitors were turned around, facing backwards. Everything reflective was hidden. Brian caught on fast to that part.

"You caught on to it. About her point of entry into this world."

Brian hadn't slept in three days. "She keeps me up at night. She knows you and she knows I know you. She wants me to be a go-between. She wants to live and not to be dead anymore. She loves her mommy and she wants her mommy to make her that room, the room she saw in her mommy's dreams. She hates her mommy for sending her into the white room and into the dark place for so long. She wants to get out. She wants me to do it or you to do it. She's scared and I'm terrified. What is happening?"

"Brian, I need you to calm and know that everything is going to be fine. We just-"

"No! It's been seven days."

"I know. Where is the tape?"

"I don't know. I threw onto the track of the monorail. I watched it get crushed and smashed and broken into thousands of pieces. That was after my third nightmare. Everything got worse after then."

Aidan closed his eyes and kept them shut for several seconds. Then, they shot open. "It's alright. I have another copy."

Brian's eyes slammed shut and kept them closed. Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead. "Oh God, no." And he ran. He ran straight out of his room.

"Brian, wait. Stop. She won't have to claim you. You just have to copy the tape." But, Brian was out of coffee shop.

He was out, on the sidewalk, then onto curb. Aidan was soon out as well, a mere ten-feet away, holding to the daylight the first copy of the tape. As his eyes focused on the video, Brian began to scream. His legs followed his voice away.

Straight into a blue Cadillac.

He flew back several feet, straight into the back of a pick-up. Aidan was at his rival's side before either driver. He couldn't stop it from happening and he couldn't do anything fix the situation now. That was not how or where his gift worked. But he could ease the pain.

"Relax, Brian. She is not coming to get you." Aidan's hand held his friend's cheek, taking away the pain and fear, giving support and answers. And then, he turned. "We need an ambulance here! Now!" But, someone had already called.

"I shouldn't have panicked like that."

"It's alright. Don't worry."

"Take care of my little brother. The git gets himself into trouble too often."

"I won't have too." Sirens whooped closer. "The ambulance is here."

"I'm not stupid, Aidan, and neither are you."

"Don't even think that, Brian."  
"Yeah, whatever. Do me two favors."

"Sure, anything."

"Edit my last piece. Get it from Nathan."

"Of course."

"And stop her from-" Then he began seizing.

 ~~~7~~~

The EMT reached Brian in time to stabilize him and bring him to the ER. The emergency room was able to fix him up, to a point. He was broken in half, snapped in two.

Nathan got the call in the apartment, panicked he called the Keller's apartment. Keiko answered, hoping it would be Aidan. Instead, she began to phone operator, calling the school to get the number for Brian's mother. She told her the little she knew, the little what Brian told her in his panic, told what hospital Brian was rushed to, then hung up only to call Aidan. He was not answering. She tried Rachel, and told her everything: that Brian is at the hospital and Aidan is probably with him.

Rachel heard half of the call. She heard that Brian was dead and that Aidan was with him and this was this was his seventh day. On the entire way to the hospital, she prepared herself for the contorted face, smell of drowned death, and the screaming she take part in.

Aidan met her in the emergency waiting room. He was not afraid. He was not hurt. She did not do this.

"Don't worry Rachel. It was not her. This was an accident." 

"Then he is alright?"

"No, Rachel. He was run over by a car then had his back broken by another. The doctor is talking with his family. I already talked with Brian. This was an accident." His face told Rachel something else.

"Aidan, what else-"

"I will tell you everything when we get home, Rachel. This isn't the place," he said as he nodded towards the grieving family walking past the swinging doors accompanied by a rapidly explaining doctor.

Aidan took his mother by the hand and left.

At home, Keiko met him with warm food (take-out Chinese), a surprisingly small amount of questions (she understand the entire situation), and the right affection (she needed more then he did, but he still needed it). Rachel smiled, changed, put on some Miles Davis, and fell onto the couch with a pint of General Tso, only to get up to unplug the television and phone. Six tracks later, she was asleep, the pint was half empty, but Keiko was finishing it off. She also was rapidly joining Rachel in dreamland. Aidan watched this from a chair facing his mother and friend, who were next to the coffee table with the picture of him and Katie, which was facing the picture of Noah, who was looking straight at his son sitting on the chair. Watching this, from his director's stuffed chair, he fell asleep. 

He dreamed, though. And they were the same dreams as before.


	7. Remotely Viewed

'She is not going to be satisfied. She needs to claim someone,' was his waking thought. He had forced himself awake. It was better than staying in that nightmare.

Keiko was asleep on the couch with Rachel, who was having a similar or probably the same nightmare. Brian's death, being the accident that it was, does not change that she needs to have someone see the ring. 

His thumb unconsciously made spirals along the right spool of the cassette. Images of everything clicked by in his head, the afternoon before it all started with Katie, her funeral, the first whispers and footsteps heard from Samara in Katie's old room, the nightmares and visions starting to accelerate, seeing the tape itself, those too real nightmare images, Noah, the last nightmare when he walked with her, talked with, but still too briefly. He knew her in those moments, a scared, cursed little girl changed by the trauma of the worst betrayal. Only wanting to be safe with her mommy, she claws out and marks whoever she thinks is listening to her, who she thinks wants her, like her mommy wanted to want her but couldn't. Then she remembers the bag over her face, the wall of the well against the back of her head, her sight blurred from a concussion, and just before she sees the stone cover slide over the well, which sees only as a glittering ring far far away, she sees her mother face looking down at her, crying. Then, black. 

Then, she clawed at her mother, driving her otherworldly force and will into her mind. Seven days later, the trauma of it all was too much. Anna Morgan walked to the cliffs overlooking Moesko Island, facing the Washington coast and feeling the presence of her daughter filling her mind with horrid images. Anna hadn't eaten the seven days, hadn't slept, was wasting away. Her husband did not know what to do; it was supposed to be all over, it had to be all over. It wasn't. Anna spread her arms like wings and fell onto the jagged rocks below, missing the soft ocean by several feet. The gulls found her before Richard; they led him to her with their call.

Aidan watched this all, through his tunnel, viewing it remotely. It was different people's memories all coming together. He saw the tape and curious thought hit him. This all won't stop only unless she realizes it has been over for a very long time. There is no reason for revenge; the person who caused the first pain is dead and her very guilt was half of the total forces that consumed her. 

He gently shook Keiko. Looking up with her eyes closed, she said the usual for her. "I don't care, Aidan, I'm not going to school today."

He smiled. "Keiko, if someone wants something, but can't get it, how do you make them realize that they can't have it?"

"You go to them, where they are home, and tell them, 'Hey, bitch. Knock it off. You can't have it.' Why do you ask?"

"Keiko, why did you stay last night?"

"Aidan, why are you asking this? I'm tired."

"All right. Go back to sleep. I'll see you soon."

"Okay, I can do that." Her eyes then shot open. "Aidan, what are you doing?"

"Ending this, Keiko. I'll see you soon."

~~~7~~~

A videocassette is an inch and half thick, seven inches long, and four inches wide. This one is black and unmarked, with no identifying marks. 

This one is going to be the toughest. This is not seeing something else or somewhere else or somewhen else. I'm going in.

I see the tape, the film. I feel the images play in my head, I see everything she lived through, and when it stopped, when she decayed, and fell into her rage. The loft in the barn, the well, the screaming fans at the horserace where she first grew her fear of horses, her cell in Eola, the interrogation room and the smell of it all. The sounds at Shelter Mountain of the birds and horses, the smell of the forest and the well. Then, there was one spot he can't see and I don't recognize. Everything comes in a tunnel, a flash, and then the smell of a barn.

This is her loft. There is no dust, other than the mustiness of straw. Everything is fresh and new. And there are no horses. The wallpaper is bright and pink, matching with a music box. I know what words it plays: "Here we go, the world is spinning. When it stops, it's just beginning. Sun comes up, we laugh and we cry. Sun goes down, and then we all die." I hear that song being sung somewhere else. 

I'm inside the tape. In Samara's world.

The ladder is leaning against a post, waiting for someone to climb it. There is only one way down the rabbit hole. I was only at a farm once, long before Samara came into our lives. Katie took me when I was four and it smells the same here as it did there, except it is much staler here, the air more recycled. There are no horses, no sheep, no goats, no people. Empty, except for someone singing that rhyme.

The barn door is strange. There is nothing beyond it, I think. Except, now beyond the threshold, there is something. White, plain, almost soundless. Almost.

Passing through the threshold sounds like the ocean, without the wetness. The other side is not the ocean. It is a white padded room. The clock says 12:38 AM. There are crude pictures on the floor, colored in crayon. Drawings of the well, the horses, the cliff, of the room itself. The clock says 9:55 PM. A pair of anodes lay on the floor. The clock says 11:03 AM. The bed is perfectly made, as if no one has slept in it. Perfect, except for the small crumple where she sat for hours at time. The clock says 6:27 PM. And the slides open, as if someone were gently pushing that way. The clock says 2:46 AM. Time is relative to her here.

The hallway here is creepy. There is no other word for it then creepy. It is the hallway of a used mental hospital, complete with sights (medicines and games on tables), smells (unmentionable and unbelievable), and sounds (screaming and whispering coming from unseen corners). A video is playing in the social room, filled with its cushioned chairs and game boards. In Technicolor, a girl with bright red shoes is singing to midgets and a fairy, walking down a road, yellow from an unseen mason, maybe their wizard. The singing drowned every noise except for that nursery rhyme from the music box in her loft. 

Down the hall, all of the doors existed, but are locked. All save one. The interrogation room opened and light breeze of cigarette smoke wafted out. The room is the same as her room here. I guess they are; they all have the same purpose. The chair is just sitting there. I can't help myself. I have to sit. I feel so tired here. The way it was when I was sick with a fever and Rachel gave me that medicine. 

The chair is strangely comfortable. The smell is not. The mix of urine, sweat, something I wish was unknowable, and smoke. But that was not it, that was not the thing that was the driving force that preventing me from passing out. The camera is there, watching, in a sense. Just behind, the desk, covered with drawings, sketches, x-ray lithographs covered with terrible images, and medical records. Some Samara's, some Anna's. A mug of coffee lay dormant on the table. Curiosity made me get up. If this is a dream, then things would taste real. It doesn't taste though; it smells like coffee, but tastes like warm water. I'm guessing that Samara never had coffee before.

The song is being sung again. She's waiting, for something. Maybe for me, maybe for someone to watch her. Maybe it's just that doing something else, like singing. Eight year-olds sometimes did that, sing just for the sake of the song. The sound is coming from beyond the door.

Through the sounds of ocean, beyond the door, I'm somewhere. I hear the horses, they should be over there, standing on that hill. But they're not there. Nothing is there, but that tree. Something is hanging there, on the trunk. Light brown on dark. Closer, it's something else. A carving, a heart, with writing: 'Samara and Anna 10/78', crudely written by a child's hand. Underneath, were the words 'I Love You', gracefully written in cursive. 

Behind me, I hear the sea again. Except this time, it actually is there. About half a mile away in the distance, the cliff was there. The one on Moesko, where Anna jumped, but this is Shelter Mountain. Things are blending here, like different sets for a movie all placed next to each other, one leading to the other leading to the next. I know this Shelter Mountain. The well is standing over there, with the forest behind it. But in front of it, almost half a mile away, the Morgan's ranch stood there, not so much looming, but waiting. Like the well. They were just standing there. 

As I walk towards the well, I try to see if there is something inside. If there is, I can't tell: the cap is on. Looking down onto the well is not as half as scary as looking up with the cap on.

And the singing starts up again. From somewhere beyond the stable and barn.

The weather changes along the way. From the kind autumn sun, it fades to an angry late winter mist. Seattle looks like this sometimes.

The island mist floated through the barn. It was still empty. It was the same with the stable and horse corral. 

Not with house though. The song is loud here, though still an echo. The mist stops, but it is icy cold. The door is open, which I know it shouldn't be. Richard Morgan would have closed it if were real. The draft would made Anna sick.

Up the hallway, past the mirror, through the greeting room, up the stairs, past the Morgan's room where slept, past the bathroom where Richard killed himself, was where the singing was coming from.

She was standing there, singing, looking at a door. 

"Samara?"

"Hello. Can you open this? My mommy locked it." Whatever was beyond it, it was sunny. Warm sun broke into this dreariness through the hinges and keyhole.

"Samara, what it is there?"

"I don't know. I can never open it. It's always locked and I can't find my mommy to open it for me."

The door gave easily. It wasn't even locked. The room was different. Pretty and pink with a soft bed with the window slightly open. An air of sweet dust filled the room, but is nothing dirty, just mildly glazed with dust. This is storybook, a classic, the perfect room for a little girl to grow up in. A rocking horse, a merry-go-round music box, a soft pink wallpaper with yellow and blue horses. A toy chest with brightly colored balls, jacks, and small toy dinosaurs.

"It's okay, Samara. You can come in." Barefoot in a plain white dress, she steps in. The wetness in her leaves dries up in the sunlight. The green scalieness of her skin visibly shifts to a soft smooth white.

"Mommy? Are you in here?"

"Samara, she isn't here. You know that. You know what happened to her. Samara? Please listen."

"She left me. I know that; I'm not stupid. How did you come here?"

"I'm not sure, but I think it's the same way you are here. Samara, do you how you are here?"  
"My mommy left me here. She tried to be a good mommy, but I was bad and I liked it and she had to let me … go away. I don't want you here."

"It doesn't matter. I have to talk to you. You have to stop." 

"I don't want to. Why should I?"

I can't think. I know she is much stronger than me, that she can end me. I don't know how to make her see that should stop. She likes it. "Samara, you're hurting other people and their mommies."

"I know. But I can't help it. He lied."

"What do you mean? Who lied?"

"The one who knew you. He lied, but he did not know it. The man who he used for his copiers has my tape. And his friend does and her friend and her father and his friends and their friends and their friends. Everyone knows me now. Everyone can see me now and know. My mommy knew and then my daddy knew. You know too." 

"It doesn't make it right. You remember how it felt when she lost you. You are doing the same thing and you know it's not right."

"No. I don't like that. I don't like you. It don't like this place." And she turned and ran.

"Samara, wait." I shouldn't chase. I won't find her here. If she wants to hide, she can; she makes the rules here.

Down the stairs and out the door and a change of scene. This is new. This is not the Morgan's ranch. Those mountains behind it are ones from the central Europe and I think that those woods are the Black Forest. 

In school, we studied gypsies and the Roma life. This almost looks like one of their home-shelters, but different. Outside, an evil looking Buddha sits on one side of the doorway, opposite a green dragon with an octopus head. To call it a door wouldn't be right either; it's more of a sheet in between two layers of beads, just enough to keep in the heat and keep out the wind.

Inside, it smells wrong. Old smells of decay and rot, dust and bone, and all there for a purpose. Skulls with melted candles and bottles of things and dense liquids. Witchcraft's things. 

Screaming in the room. Whatever it is it's making the walls shake. "Samara. Calm down. I'm coming for you."

No one is here. It's just a very crude medical room. A chair reclined back, with restraints for the hands and stirrups for the legs and feet. The surrounding stainless steel tables are vials of different colored fluids. Not all the vials have only liquids in them. This one, this greenish one, has some sort of embryo in it and a hole on top, a small puncture where a needle would have gone through. What was this?

The rolling table has a brown-red dyed sheet covering it. In an opened wooden box, a thin syringe lay blooded, along with an acupuncture map with seven black dots on seven Qi points: one at the center of neck, one at the center of the sternum, one in the navel, one on each side of the navel, one on the lower stomach, and one the final point lower than that. I can't read the Chinese characters written along the sides of the scroll, but I can read the "Anna Morgan" written at the top. 

I end up touching the chair, then running my fingers up the side of the needle, screaming starts. A woman screaming in horrible pain and it happens six times more. In the blackened mirror that is beaming and reflecting light into the room does not have me in it. It's Richard Morgan, standing there, crying. The screaming was his wife's cries. But, there was something else, some force pushing and crying out. It even hit me in this memory, it was a memory. Richard's of Samara's birth. She was born here, fully psychically developed, and spit painfully out into the world with her agonized mother and whatever butcher made this happen.

Richard was here, in this ancient shelter, thinking how wrong this all is. His wife was only pregnant for six months and the birth is killing them both. This is all wrong. Samara was made for some purpose and I do not think it is for a good one.

The birth is psychically traumatic. I can feel it, he can feel it, Anna was probably ripped to pieces from it, and Samara was not immune to it either. She burnt by her own fire.

The pain is too much.

Outside, the hut is gone. The pain is leaving. I can hear horses and the nursery rhyme.

She is just standing there, singing in front of the well.

"You know this shouldn't be. You had every right to act the way you did, creating this world, taking it all out on your mother and father. Now, now you are just being a selfish little girl." She began to tremor, to sob. "Samara she loved you, it just couldn't be. You were killing her, throwing everything into her mind. She knew she loved you; you know that. That is half of the reason she jumped off the cliff." Seabirds flew behind me and the ocean crashed. "She wanted you stop causing the pain and go somewhere happy and safe."

"Safe?" She is just a scared little girl.

"Yes, Samara, safe. Away from the horses."

"No." There was something different in her voice, not something innocent and scared. This was malice. "No, she knew that I like it. Going and causing showing them things. She knew what my daddy didn't know."

"It doesn't mean you have to keep doing this. Spreading your virus. You are taking away people from their mommies." I can't think too much before I speak. She'll know.

"They don't have good mommies. No one has good mommies. Everyone is bad."

"You know you are wrong. You are just little girl afraid of what's next. Let go and leave. No one wants you. No one wants to listen. We have all heard you, that you're scared and you're angry."

"No". The world got substantially monochromatic, except me and one thing. Her skin, it's changed. It's now rotting green, skin with lesion covered, rotten. Then, she looks up, face twitching with malice. Her finely combed hair is matted, tangled, and wet. Her face is half shrouded by her hair, only one eye and a destroyed face peering through, showing a snarl that would send the Minotaur home crying. This was the last thing they all saw, Noah, Katie, Anna.

I run, faster than I ever have, with terror carrying me all the way. I run back to hospital, through the questioning room, cigarette still lying in the tray, smoke curling up to fill the room, down the hallway where the sound of Scarecrow and Tin man singing, to her white padded room with the clock that was speeding, minutes, hours, days flying by. 

A door lies half cracked open. The door to her room. On the other side, I'm standing outside of the horse stable. A wave of static and black and white are following. The barn should be safe, but it's not. She found a way into her television and crawled down the ladder. 

She died with a broken leg, in so much pain. That's why she walks with that limp. I have to find a place where she can't know or exist in.

The room. That special room that Anna wanted so desperately for her. It is the only thing she can have of her mother's, this one place where everything is perfect. 

In the house, the TV crackles and she comes out. Same with the water in the kitchen sink and in the bathroom. She isn't walking towards me, it's more of a stagger. "Samara. Stop this. She taught you better."

She likes it, the pain she causes. I don't know if it will stop.

She can't get in here. I hope she can't, as there is no way out. The door pulls, but the knob won't turn. 

I'm stuck in here.

Time passes. In here, I've here for about an hour. Outside, in the real world, I can't tell how much time has passed, or if any has passed at. Time is relative.

Another half hour passes. This is stagnant world in here, in her mind, in this tape. 

This isn't good. The static, it's becoming the door. The television flickers. She found a way in. And I found a way out.

Crashing through the window, I land on soft wet grass. I'm on Shelter Mountain again, several feet in front of the well. Everything is getting gray.

She is almost here and I think I know where she going to come from. 

I'm wrong. 

"I don't like you."

"Likewise. This won't stop, won't it?"

Her approach was the answer. She was moving faster. I turned, focused, and made the tunnel in head, my way out. I could smell the stank of her breathe and felt cold of skin.

Then, I jumped down the well. Down the rabbit hole.


	8. Credits

The static repeats itself three times before the ring screams on the television screen. Rachel Keller cannot tell for the first few moments if she is still dreaming. She couldn't scream when she realized she wasn't.

The static flared again, replacing the image on the screen with a well surrounded by meadow and further back a forest. The angle was different this time, but it did not top a hand from shooting out from beneath, awkwardly pulling up the rest of its body.

It was when she heard the bathroom sink stop running that realized that figure that was pulling itself out of the well was her son. Then, it hit her that he yelling soundlessly at her, and running straight toward her. The word looked like 'mirror' and it seemed as if the rules of perspective were being shot out the window. He ran until his head filled the screen, then popped out into the real world. Terrified, his hand pulled the rest of his body out, crackling with static.

"Aidan!" Rachel pulled his free hand out through the screen. "How did you do this? Why did you this?"

Out of breathe, he yelled, "Rachel, she's coming! Get the mirror now." Water seeped from the screen, darkening the carpet and cooling the room. His eyes closed and tunneled into his own mind.

"Aidan, what do you mean?" It hit her, his psychic powers. Everything. It all flashed back to her. Everyone saw what Samara wanted. She wanted to be seen, to be heard, to be felt. She wanted to be loved, but gave only pain; she liked it better. But it wasn't what she wanted, so she kept going in the same circle, a loop going round and around. She had to see it all to stop.

Her hand pulled herself up out of the well, hair draped lifelessly over her face. Each step she took was one more into this world, out of the tape, water running into this world.

The bathroom door opened. "Aidan, where did you-"

"Keiko, get out now!" Rachel shouted it, but it was Aidan's force that physically sent her away into the kitchen.

The brief distraction was all Samara needed to break through Aidan's safeguard. One hand went through the screen, then the other, her body stretching out like a drowned cat reawakening from the dead. Stepping forward, she rushed Rachel, sending her to the ground with sheer force. The rounded mirror slowly spun under the chair, friction from the water slowing it down. The dead girl turned to Aidan, snarl and eye focused on her kill, body flickering with static.

"Stop." His lips did not open, but everyone in the room heard him. "Stop being a spoiled little girl and see that you are becoming just what Richard said you are. A little demon that brings nothing but pain. A little demon that takes little girls from their mommies. That's what you are and that's all you will ever be. A little girl that killed her mommy and liked it."

In the same medium, wherever it existed and whatever it was, Samara answered back. "No. You're wrong. I loved my mommy. I couldn't stop it." The static faded and stopped, though her face was broken and skin was green.

"You could stop it. I figured out how."

"No. You're a liar." She stopped. Her skin went pale white, the color of skin that hasn't seen daylight in years, which, of course, it hasn't. "I couldn't stop it. It was the first thing I remember. It went with the pain. It took it away. I remember making go away, then the horses and the races started. They were so loud."

Rachel's hand inched toward the mirror. "They kept you up at night," she said. "They made you sad."

"They made me hurt so much. Then he told me there was something I had to do for him. That I was made evil and had to do evil things. He smelled like fish."

"Richard said that?" Rachel knew he hated her, that he was afraid of her, but she thought it grew in him. She though that he loved her, but realized what she was.

"Not Daddy. The other man, the one who made me. He still says it. In my dreams."

"The maker. He was the one from the hut. It was the reason they went to Europe, Rachel. He lied to them, said that they were going to have a normal child, but he had other ideas. Another agenda. He wanted something else of them."

"He wanted me. To do something for him. I know what." Her skin tinged green.

"No, Samara," Aidan said in his tunnel. "He used you to kill your mommy. You are nothing but his tool."

"No," the voice of a little girl said, all of the raspieness and hate gone.

"Look in to the mirror and see what he made you do." Rachel couldn't see; she was standing on the wrong side of it, but Aidan saw it all. The doctor visiting her, mostly in her dreams but several times he came. He watched her, even talked to her once, inspecting his work. Anna broke off relations with him shortly after the accident at the race. He was there, watching. She thought he provoked his daughter. Thunder cracked before she threw the horse that threw Richard. The man mumbling next to Anna's crowd caught her eye, but she was too busy with her daughter. They saw Samara take Katie, scar Becca, kill Noah, force her thoughts into Richard's head, and push Anna off the cliff. The memory of her love broke her lust for hate; there was no other term for it. She wanted what she couldn't have more than the satisfaction the kill gave her. Sad, but true of all humanity. 

In the mirror, she saw the ring and beyond it, the horrible face, twisted and hate-filled, green, sunken, and rotten.

Aidan thought all of that, knowing she was reading him.

Samara read, knowing that she was being watched. 

She shook. Everything hit her. The truth of what she was made to be, evil incarnate, and it only made her feel more and more human. 

In the tunnel, they met again. "All that hate and love of your past, jealousy of me, this foolish boy, standing here challenging you, with my simple powers compared to yours'. I have nothing but Rachel and Keiko and I know that they can be struck down by you, but you can let them live." His thoughts met her and her's met him.

"I don't know how to do that. I like it. It is all I have ever known."

"Liar. You loved her, then you killed her." The tunnel changed color, in its own way. The tunnel has no colors; it was the emotions that shifted. 

"I'm sorry. I don't want this anymore." Her voiced echoed in his head and sobbed into Rachel's ears. The little girl lost her evil.

The mirror slipped from her hands, bouncing onto the wet carpet with a thunk. The little girl fell to her knees, Rachel following suit. "Samara."

"Rachel, she's alright." Aidan helped her up, guided her by hand. "The wound is closed. I'll bring her to my room. She needs to sleep."

Keiko said what Rachel was thinking. "Is that such a good idea?"

~~~7~~~

It was a good idea. More like it was an idea and no one else had one. 

Ironically, she slept for seven days, waking only twice, to eat, drink, and use the bathroom. She didn't seem to remember where she was. The walls shook, though. She had nightmares, complete with reactions that paled Aidan's telekinesis.

"I don't think you should send her away." Keiko had forced Aidan to school at the third day, after she woke the first time. "It didn't work the first time in '77. Yes, she's different now, but that may just mean it's all lying dormant. And, well, you know what I mean."

"I know and I agree. I think Rachel is thinking what you're thinking and I think it's a good idea."

"It's an idea. It's better than nothing."

On the seventh day, when she awoke, the first thing she saw was the picture of Aidan and Katie, smiling together. It was the sound of her crying that brought Rachel to her.

"Samara, you're awake."

"I'm sorry." Tears again. "I'm sorry for everything. It's what I was made for."

"Is it over?" The words were conflicted, torn between the want to love this little girl and the memory of everything Samara was.

"It can't be over. It's me."

Rachel stood up to leave, but didn't go. She stood, watching. Everything was wrong. This little girl was capable of killing for the sheer pleasure of it, but she wasn't, not anymore. Not that she thought. Guilt was written on their faces, for both their actions and the emotions and the memory that went with them all.

"Aidan said it was over, or as over as it can be. We'll just have to be careful from now on. Just to see if that man comes back."

"We?"

"We. Aidan is taking apart his editing room. You're going to stay in there. Here, sit up. You something to eat."

"Rachel. Your name is Rachel." Their eyes met and locked, both shifting from hate to something near love. "Why are you doing this? I don't deserve this."

"Because we don't know." Aidan stood in the doorway, holding a steaming bowl of soup. "We don't know if this is temporary, if this is a trick, if this is for real, or if this is a test for you and a trap for us. We want, I want, you to know that it's over. You should eat." Next to the picture, he placed the bowl, then a glass of juice. "It's over, Samara."

Walking towards the door, tears falling onto the carpet, Rachel looked up and turned. "I guess you can say, welcome home."


	9. Fin

A year passed. Another one did too.

Control was the first thing they all had to learn. Specifically, the control of emotions. It was through the process of getting over their hate that Rachel came to love Samara, but never fully. Fear always lingered. 

Aidan learned to control and expand on what he was by showing her how to control her's. Keiko learned what to ask and when to ask it. She pried to deep once and wound up unconscious on the other side of the room. Samara apologized for that outburst, but was not punished, like she was after the seventh month mark, which they celebrated (Samara gained a sense of humor rather quickly) and she almost tossed Harvey out the window for surprising her, hands at her side. The only thing that saved him was a closed plexiglass sliding door. Rachel, acting in her maternal powers that the courts gave her, forbid her from filming and editing for two weeks. Aidan talked it down to one; they had a project due the following week.

She integrated. Rachel tried to do this the best way she could. It was slap-shot, mostly improvised, and constructed of questionable material, but it was much better than what was before. The fear subsided, but never left. When Samara had nightmares, which she often did, they all shared them. It didn't where she was where they were, they were connected and that was all that mattered.

What Rachel said, "Welcome home," she meant. Samara, a killer of unimaginable power, became family.

"Aidan. He's here." Samara, wearing green and blue now, her rotted through dress long abandoned. 

Aidan had already lined up several colleges, all film schools, all in big cities. They were flipping through pamphlets outside, under the summer sun. He knew who she talking about; she sent his image and his presence into his head.

"We finish this, I guess." He watched her stand and hop off her swing. 

"You said it's never though." She smiled as said this. She was doing this more often. Keiko told them that a theory about curses that once its true purpose was realized and confronted by the cursed individual, the curse would break away. It seemed true, to a degree. A year and a half of therapy and a new life had done the rest. She had two rooms, one in the Keller's apartment and the other with her new aunt Ruth. When told the entire story, Ruth was, to say the least, upset that the supernatural force that killed her only daughter in such a horrible fashion was watching "Big Daddy" with her dead daughter's father and cousin on the couch, laughing. Ruth herself warmed to Samara before the telling and eventually after. She came to call the situation "a second chance with a second daughter without any of the 'labor', pardon the pun", which always made Samara laugh.

Aidan was floored by a force squeezing his temples. Eyes bloodshot, he screamed and fought.

She could not see where the force was coming from, but it did not matter. Sight was not necessary. Samara reached out and grabbed the non-corporeal body. The lashed out in pain, dropping Aidan. A bloodless scar formed over her left eye. If anyone else felt it, they would have fell into shock. To Samara, it was just a memory of her first birth.

She screamed, "Go away. I am not yours' anymore." A blast from Samara. "You don't have power over me anymore." A blast to Samara. "I am my own." And another. "You can't hurt me anymore. But I can hurt you." The edge that had left her voice returned. Her skin returned to grayscale. 

The sky turned red. The wind forced the air out of their lungs. Heat sizzled the grass, boiling the pond, splitting her ends.

Then, silence.

The pool of water replenished the grass and a cool breeze refreshed them. "I could have helped," Aidan said, pulling himself to his feet.

"Yes, you could have. It wasn't your place to. Now it's over."

"Are you sure it is?"

"Yes."

"Did you see what it was? What he was?"

"Yes."

"You're not going to tell me now, are you?"

"No. Tomorrow, maybe, but not now. I'm tired."

"Let's get you home and order Chinese and rent a movie or something. I think we need to celebrate."

"Rachel will be happy. She loves happy endings." Turned, pulling a compact from her pocket. "I don't think this is going to go away though."

"It's better that way."

~Fin~


End file.
